May 17, 2012

Educational Testing Service, which administers the SATs for the College Board, requires students to sit at least 4 feet apart during the exam to prevent cheating. But a company inspector who conducted a surprise visit that day found that the students were sitting much closer.

An email sent by the company Tuesday informed the kids, who came from 50 city schools, that their results would be invalidated and invited them to retake the test at another location on May 19.... Packer Head of School Bruce Dennis said that there’s no evidence that any of the kids cheated, and he’s looking into a lawsuit to prevent their scores from being scrapped.

Shouldn't the lawsuit be against the Packer Collegiate Institute? It screwed up the seating.

If the exam was proctored properly, there shouldn't be any cheating, regardless of the seating (when I took the SATs, I seem to remember the seats being pretty close, although it may have been because we had to keep our Pennsylvania Long Rifles handy in case the French and Indians attacked).

The more optimistic students will see the invalid test as a prep course

Will those students who were properly seated at other sites sue for their own chance to do a "do-over"? I admit I haven't looked at the link - I'm almost out the door - but is there some evidence that there was cheating, i.e, higher than normal scores or sam scores?

That reminds me of the final building inspectors using the Handicapped persons rules on bathroom installations.

They recently got rid of the indoor ATM at my bank (there is still a drive through one). I asked the teller and he said the ADA people complained that it wasn't accessible. So now it doesn't exist. Lovely.

"You people gurgling about "regulators" do understand that ETS is a private firm, don't you?"

They're a nonprofit who've colluded with another nonprofit, the College Board, to monopolize virtually the entire college admissions process. They've taken regulatory capture about as far as it can go.

I feel especially bad for those students who have to retake their SATs on Saturday because my daughter is one of them.

I don’t think that having to get up early on a Saturday and take the SATs again exactly amounts to a crucifixion, as Traditionalguy put it, but my daughter would probably agree with him. (Unfortunately, she will have to schlep all the way out to a distant Coney Island school for the retest, whereas it was a fairly short walk for her to get to Packer. No doubt other kids will find the new location more convenient.) Like Mitchell, I tried to look on the bright side, and suggested that the invalid first test could help her get a better score on the second one, but I don’t think she quite bought that.

What I’d really like is for both tests to be tallied and for the student to officially receive the better of the two scores. Of course that won’t happen, since the possibility of cheating on the first one has been raised. And that, obviously, is ludicrous. If a kid wants to cheat on an SAT, he finds somebody to take the test for him, he doesn’t squint across at the test of the kid next to him, in hopes of replicating its No. 2 pencil dot-pattern.

Many years ago, I signed up for the SAT forgetting that I was going west for college and at that time, western colleges favored the ACT and I'd done extremely well on it. So, that morning I decided to see how fast I could take it without simply guessing. There were a lot of alarmed faces when I left early. (My math score ended up worse than average, my verbal score better than average.)

I work for another major college-entrance exam company (I'm sure you can guess which one), and I can tell you for a fact that it was completely appropriate for the surprise inspector to invalidate the tests. These are STANDARDIZED tests, which means the tests must be given in a standardized environment. There are numerous rules that the company enforces in order to maintain a standard environment, and flouting these rules (as the hosting institution did) is absolutely grounds for invalidation. It is really too bad that the kids will have to take it again, but re-takes happen all the time in this industry, and in most cases, it works in the kids' favor. They end up having an authentic (and free) practice test in which to become familiar with the way the test works, and to get over any nerves they might have. This is only news because it happened in New York and affected so many students.

They should have stopped the test then and let the kids take the test the next day.

Yeah. Totally practical.

Someone who actually knows what he's talking about has told us that "retakes happen all the time". Maybe John will be kind enough to explain to us why the retakes are done the way they're done, and not some other way.

The company that provides the test has every right to set the requirements for the administration of the test. If the requirements are not met, then the validity of the test may be undermined.If you use a phone during the test, regardless of the reason, your copy of the ACT is removed and destroyed. It doesn't matter whether you were trying to cheat.This is more of the same. It's setting the baseline. Packer should be ashamed for not following these basic guidelines.

"Shouldn't the lawsuit be against the Packer Collegiate Institute? It screwed up the seating."

Packer is one of the two private schools in Brooklyn Heights (my kids go to the other one, St Ann's). Most of the kids impacted by this attend Packer or St Ann's, although kids from lots of other schools were taking the SATs there as well. Packer has been one of the main testing sites for the SAT for years (it has larger rooms and better facilities to host these tests), so it obviously should have known about the 4-ft rule. But it's understandable that they didn't go around rearranging the desks in the classrooms to make sure all the seating satisfied it (I'm told that the inspector was griping about 'violations' as petty as 2 inches).

We know lots of families impacted by this screw-up. It's a big headache for the kids and their families as well as Packer, not just in terms of having to retake the thing. One of the most common complaints I've heard is that families had made plans to attend graduations for older siblings already in college that weekend, and now have to make adjustments on the fly.

I'd be very surprised if there were any litigation. Packer has offered to bus the kids to the new test site, but that's all I've heard they have done so far.

John, I don't think anybody here has said they don't have the right to set and enforce testing conditions. The problem is, the contractor they entered into a business relationship with made the mistake. In response to this mistake, they are punishing their customers.

Now you tell me how a business handles that situation. What does McDonald's do when they find out a franchisee is selling cheeseburger containing slightly more burger than called for in regulations.

Do they set the franchisee straight? Or do they go to the houses of the customers and confiscated the burgers?

And when you're done, please address Machoseven's point that there is a bit more to taking an SAT then getting out of bed Saturday morning and going to a classroom instead of a soccer field.

How the hell do you cheat on an SAT? when I took it I didn't know anyone there.

I completely tanked on the SAT. The day I took it was a Saturday and my parents were out of town for the weekend. On Friday night, in preparation for a house party I was going to have Saturday night, my friends and I took all of the furniture and wall hangings, including the Christmas tree and a large aquarium, out of the main rooms and stuffed everything in the bedrooms.

During the entire test, I was freaking out that I would come home to find my parents standing in an empty living room ready to kill me.

ETS has been rocked by cheating scandals recently. Not the kind that would matter here, but people taking tests for other people -- which was common for a long time and not an issue until somehow somebody got busted.

So, naturally, because of that cheating scandal, ETS has decided to enforce its silly rules that have nothing to do with that cheating scandal, and cause misery and distress for honest, hardworking students.

How the hell do you cheat on an SAT? when I took it I didn't know anyone there.

I took it at my school, so I knew everyone.

Sucks if you had a really good performance day.

I was thinking maybe if you had to retake that a. you should have options when to do so (not all forced into one weekend when they might have plans) and b. If the scores were within say 100 points you should get to keep the higher score. None of this was the kids fault.

I think that is not quite true. They are a private agency, true, but they are certified (Accredited? Approved?) by the federal govt as an agency who can do this kind of testing.

Ditto the school accreditation agencies.

Much of what we touch in our daily lives is not govt regulated but is regulated just the same. UL governs all electrical appliances. National Electrical Code (by a private org NFPA) governs how we wire our houses. NEMA governs the size and specifications of light bulbs.AMerican Society of Mechanical Engineers regulates your water heater.

All private organizations but with govt sanction. If you wire your house not in accordant with the National Electrical Code, the city will not give you an occupancy permit. And so on.

The right answer to these kinds of problems is to have severe punishments for cheating.

I recall as an undergraduate grading computer programs, and found a number of cheaters. It was really clear. Bringing this to the professor's attention, he did essentially nothing. In my view, they should have been given an "F" in the class at a minimum, and put on probation.